Callie is entering spinsterhood, and decides she might as well start living it up, reputation be damned. She makes a list of things she wants to do - smoke a cheroot, fence, have a drink at a bar, kiss someone - and knows she'll start with the kissing. She sneaks into the home of the renowned rake Gabriel St. John, a man she has been dreaming about since accidentally seeing him seduce a woman ten years ago.
Gabriel is bamboozled by this lass, who keeps challenging both is honor and his desire.

This was super fun. I loved that Callie breaks the mold of this time and that Gabriel doesn't immediately fall for her but can't help himself as he is time and again impressed by her plucky charm. I adored MacLean's other series, but am finding this one to be a bit more light hearted, which is perfect for the mood I'm in.

I listened to the audio book for my second go through of this classic and I think I enjoyed it even more! I did have to set the narration speed to 1.5x as the otherwise lovely narrator was very. slow. There are some great sexy times scenes in this novel that had me blushing while driving (see Gentlemen's Club scene and 'checking off' riding astride), and Ralston is such a great hero. I loved how you can see MacLean's obviously influence of Lisa Kleypas's Dreaming of You, but takes all of the elements I detested in that book and turns them on their head in her work. Especially nice to see Ralston's former mistress treated sympathetically, and not as a crazy villainess.

Partially re-read for the #SummerofSarahMacLean read-a-long in 2020